Church bells echo in the drizzly night air. An unlikely sound considering its religious connotations in a city described as the most un-churched in America. Portland holds a beauty it cannot grasp. Evidenced in the confused faces that trudge the Pearl and jaunt with bohemian steps. There are faces with heavy hearts and hidden wounds, piled away in some attic where dust only scatters with the growing collection.
If God is real, the trees seem to proclaim it louder.
Oregon's liberal stance is no mystery to the rest of the union. But so often religion is inferred as politics in the mass' mind and progressive activists are considered godless heathens, at the least, and "republican" becomes a derogatory term.
Politics and religiosity become infused into an awkward battle where strategy and funds and signatures and governors and hippies and God and gay and trees and apocalypse are lumped into the same paragraph as well as the same breath.
I do not doubt the day when two men or two women exchange rings freely will come. Maybe not this year or this decade, but it will happen. And many will label this the downward fall of America, the soon to be Sodom of our time. But rest assured there will be a worse day to come. One that will cause people of this world to cry out because of their own hatred, to weep for their malicious words and acts of evil against the lost of this world. It is heart breaking what the withholding of love has done. For those who refuse to show mercy and grace will have mercy and grace withheld from them (James 2:13).
Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew describes consequences of not showing love or showering grace,
"A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter -- two years old! -- to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out to her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable -- I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
“At last I asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."
The story of the Bible isn't one of condemnation, it is one of seeking, God seeking and longing to be with his people. And the story climaxes with Jesus dying on the cross, but it doesn't end there, for the resolution is being played out now, with you and me and the church.
Open arms will direct the lost to Him, but pointing fingers and closed arms will only push them away. And God is seeking the lost, the hurt, the confused, the you's and me's and them's and these, and he will not stop looking as he did not stop himself from dying.
The past two consecutive nights I've awoken to couples fighting outside my apartment window. Their screams and shouts echoed back and fourth off the brick. One girl I thought was laughing, was in fact crying hysterically for her boyfriend to come back, come back here dammit! I don't know if he came back. And I wondered if she was left there alone in her tears, empty handed chasing after what she wanted. And it reminded me of all the things I chase after that leave me crying and alone.
Even when we don't deserve it, even when we run in the opposite direction, Jesus comes chasing after us. This example is displayed so beautifully in the book of Hosea.
Hosea was asked by God to go and find a wife and he told him beforehand that she would be unfaithful. So Hosea did as the Lord said and he married a woman named Gomer. And together they had three children, 2 boys and one girl.
God was using the symbolism of Hosea and Gomer's marriage to represent God and his relationship with his people the Israelites. And as God said beforehand, Gomer left one night and did not return.
I can imagine Hosea waking up to find the other side of the bed cold and empty. He rises and checks on the children, kissing them on the cheek and pulling the blankets around them tighter. And I can see Hosea stepping quietly outside and looking into the distance. I see tears streaming down his face as he waits in silence.
Morning awakes and he does not see her in the horizon and soon the mid-day's heat is bearing down on the back of his neck, but his eyes do not waver as his heart continues hoping. And finally God says to go and find her, for she is with another man. And I can imagine Hosea running as fast as he can, a pillow of dust rising behind his path, his sandals falling off his feet as he continues on barefoot, frantic to find his love.
He bursts into a stranger’s home and slams down enough money to buy her back for she has become another man's slave. And he throws his arms around her and he cannot stop kissing her as the tears roll down his face.
What is that feeling? As we toil and labor in our house of slavery, in our hopeless lives of sin. But what is that sound? Footsteps? A madman screaming? The door explodes and there he stands, his scarred hands stretched out to you, his teary eyes starring into yours. He embraces you, and holds you, and cannot stop kissing you.
And here, God, the beautiful poet, whispers his loving words in your ear,
"Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, my love; my beautiful one, come with me." (Song of Solomon 2:10-13)
If God is real, the trees seem to proclaim it louder.
Oregon's liberal stance is no mystery to the rest of the union. But so often religion is inferred as politics in the mass' mind and progressive activists are considered godless heathens, at the least, and "republican" becomes a derogatory term.
Politics and religiosity become infused into an awkward battle where strategy and funds and signatures and governors and hippies and God and gay and trees and apocalypse are lumped into the same paragraph as well as the same breath.
I do not doubt the day when two men or two women exchange rings freely will come. Maybe not this year or this decade, but it will happen. And many will label this the downward fall of America, the soon to be Sodom of our time. But rest assured there will be a worse day to come. One that will cause people of this world to cry out because of their own hatred, to weep for their malicious words and acts of evil against the lost of this world. It is heart breaking what the withholding of love has done. For those who refuse to show mercy and grace will have mercy and grace withheld from them (James 2:13).
Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew describes consequences of not showing love or showering grace,
"A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter -- two years old! -- to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out to her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable -- I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
“At last I asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."
The story of the Bible isn't one of condemnation, it is one of seeking, God seeking and longing to be with his people. And the story climaxes with Jesus dying on the cross, but it doesn't end there, for the resolution is being played out now, with you and me and the church.
Open arms will direct the lost to Him, but pointing fingers and closed arms will only push them away. And God is seeking the lost, the hurt, the confused, the you's and me's and them's and these, and he will not stop looking as he did not stop himself from dying.
The past two consecutive nights I've awoken to couples fighting outside my apartment window. Their screams and shouts echoed back and fourth off the brick. One girl I thought was laughing, was in fact crying hysterically for her boyfriend to come back, come back here dammit! I don't know if he came back. And I wondered if she was left there alone in her tears, empty handed chasing after what she wanted. And it reminded me of all the things I chase after that leave me crying and alone.
Even when we don't deserve it, even when we run in the opposite direction, Jesus comes chasing after us. This example is displayed so beautifully in the book of Hosea.
Hosea was asked by God to go and find a wife and he told him beforehand that she would be unfaithful. So Hosea did as the Lord said and he married a woman named Gomer. And together they had three children, 2 boys and one girl.
God was using the symbolism of Hosea and Gomer's marriage to represent God and his relationship with his people the Israelites. And as God said beforehand, Gomer left one night and did not return.
I can imagine Hosea waking up to find the other side of the bed cold and empty. He rises and checks on the children, kissing them on the cheek and pulling the blankets around them tighter. And I can see Hosea stepping quietly outside and looking into the distance. I see tears streaming down his face as he waits in silence.
Morning awakes and he does not see her in the horizon and soon the mid-day's heat is bearing down on the back of his neck, but his eyes do not waver as his heart continues hoping. And finally God says to go and find her, for she is with another man. And I can imagine Hosea running as fast as he can, a pillow of dust rising behind his path, his sandals falling off his feet as he continues on barefoot, frantic to find his love.
He bursts into a stranger’s home and slams down enough money to buy her back for she has become another man's slave. And he throws his arms around her and he cannot stop kissing her as the tears roll down his face.
What is that feeling? As we toil and labor in our house of slavery, in our hopeless lives of sin. But what is that sound? Footsteps? A madman screaming? The door explodes and there he stands, his scarred hands stretched out to you, his teary eyes starring into yours. He embraces you, and holds you, and cannot stop kissing you.
And here, God, the beautiful poet, whispers his loving words in your ear,
"Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, my love; my beautiful one, come with me." (Song of Solomon 2:10-13)
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